Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Ten Things I Learned In Dyeing Class Today

1. Pro Chem & Dye is the mecca for fabric dyeing. (It is housed in an old typical New England textile factory.)

2. Carol Soderlund presents the most organized workshop based on her 14 years of teaching dyeing and is extremely generous and knowledgeable.

3. Her handouts are amazingly detailed and informative.

4. The class is full with many students who have been dyeing with happy accidents and now ant an organized and systematic method. (Including me!)

5. Pro Chem offers about 140 different color MX dyes.

6. Of all those dyes, there are 16 pure dyes.

7. From 9 of these pure dyes, we will end up with 1042 color swatches. Along with the swatches, we will all go home with a notebook with the formulas, that everyone is lusting after.

8. It's deja vu all over again, back to college chemistry lab with the graduated cylinders.


9. Tyvek is great to use for labeling. It is inert to the dye.

10. Stirring the dye bucket for 15 minutes seems like forever.

3 comments:

  1. Awesome -- I'm saving my pennies to take that class.
    I'm watching the door today for my latest order from Pro-chem -- love them!
    So, which are the pure dyes? I didn't find that info on-line.

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  2. Carol's classes are great; I took ones at QSDS and Nancy Crow's barn in 2008.
    About that 15 minutes of stirring ... it goes so much faster when you're in a group than it does when you're on your own at home!
    My advice: If you think you will want additional cylinders, get them now if Carol offers them, because it's hard to find such good ones.

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  3. ProChem has a color chart with all theri dyes. Underneath them there are codes. Any of the codes with MX are pure.

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